David Furnish: Fighting the Stigma

As chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, David Furnish does all he can to see that his young son, Zachary, will one day live in an AIDS-free world. Last November the activist and filmmaker delivered a keynote speech at the United States Conference on AIDS in Chicago, discussing the Greater Than AIDS initiative (< href ="http://www.greaterthan.org/">GreaterThan.org), of which the Elton John AIDS Foundation is a founding partner. Just last month, the foundation’s annual Academy Awards party, a tradition since 1993 raised an impressive $5.25 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS, but Furnish’s ceaseless efforts go far beyond monetary contributions.


What led the Elton John AIDS Foundation to cofound Greater Than AIDS?
Just the opportunity to partner with many wonderful people, like the Kaiser Foundation, Walgreens, Johnson Publishing, and Ebony magazine. We’re finding, despite the fact that we’ve been living with this disease for 30 years, that the greatest challenge we’re facing is stigma. The biggest hurdle we have to overcome is getting people to overcome their fear and their inhibitions so they can go into safe, easy environments and learn their HIV status as soon and as privately as possible so they can act accordingly.

How important are events like the U.S. Conference on AIDS?
Very important, because I think there is a younger generation of people and a lot of minority communities that basically hit the [information] snooze button on the alarm clock. People aren’t writing about AIDS as much anymore. I get very frustrated every time I pick up a newspaper on World AIDS Day and find the story buried on page 26, if it’s covered at all.

What would you like to say to the younger generation?
I would say, if you’re in a situation to prevent yourself from contracting any disease, you should do so. [Which means] wearing a condom if you’re in a nonexclusive relationship or in an exclusive relationship where you don’t know the status of your partner.

http://hivplusmag.com/latinos-and-hiv/story.asp?id=2273&categoryid=1&issue=87